In the last 10 years, there have been a number of young players who have been dubbed as “can’t miss” chess phenoms (Bu, Ponomariov, Bacrot, Radjabov, Karjakin, Lahno, Nakamura, etc.). Unfortunately, at one phase or another, they all hit the brick wall. Some do manage to progress after a brief halt.
What does Carlsen have to do to avoid the same fate early on? How does Carlsen compare to Karpov, Kasparov, or Fischer at the same age?
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
He is the brick wall.
He doesn’t. Those were proven phenomena, made of world champions!
All in all, he’s just another brick in the wall…
Why do (chess)people beeleve they can see whats gooing to happend in the future?!
As they can calculate 10 moves ahead in chess games.
“Anonymous said…
Why do (chess)people beeleve they can see whats gooing to happend in the future?!”
I believe you can’t spell.
Susan, I don’t see Ruslan Ponomariov in your list of young phenoms. Pono won the knockout world championship when he was only 18 (beating Ivanchuk in the final). He placed second behind The Great Kaspy at Linares, and scored several important results.
Pono finished in the top 10 in the 2005 FIDE World Cup, which qualified him for the Candidates for the FIDE World Chess Championship 2007, being played in May-June 2007. He was eliminated in the first round, losing 3.5-2.5 to Sergei Rublevsky.
Now he packs sausage in a Ukranian meat factory.
Ok I cant spell, but ur only rude (dickhead or whatever, guess (beleve) ur an American (or English), moron!!!
“Karjakin hit the brick wall?”
Wait a second ,I don’t understand what you are talking about !
Dude, thoug the remark of you not being able to spell was not mine I got to concur with it. And if you are not able to understand a little teasing but start offending people then I am really sorry for you. What’s the point? Relax!
Other than that I am somewhat skeptical as to whether Carlsen will have an impact similar to that of Kramnik or, even more, Kasparov. My gut tells me he will not be as dominant as the latter of the two, albeit an exceptionally strong player.
Finally, I think it is a bit misleading to judge the players’ strength only by the rating list, as it is getting inflated over the years. Kasparov’s all-time high would probably translate to 2900 nowadays. However…
well carlsen is showing that he stands out of that pack and i think he has hit some very big walls but he has kept improving his rating
Somebody has to tell Karjakin that he hit the brick wall. Poor kid still does not know that.
Drinks more orange juice than the rest, Stronger than Fischer, Kasparov, or Karpov at the same age…plus…who said Karjakin or Nakamura hit a brick wall?!
“How does Carlsen compare to Karpov, Kasparov, or Fischer at the same age?”
Like all above, he has a big you know what.
idk abot Karjakin but nakamura has clearly hit a brick wall he cannot even stay over 2700 perhaps he needs to play in bigger tourneys but why would he waste his time playing in weak u.s opens to lose to IMs when he could be studying hard in preperation
for the moment he gets the invite to a super GM tourney
Susan,
I don’t think I am the only one who considered the “brick wall” remark sort of inappropriate. C’mmon now, you are talking about some of the best chess players in the world. Surely, I wouldn’t consider being only the tenth best (for example) in the world “hitting the brick wall”.
Of course, I do understand what you meant. Still…..
gabor i dont understand what your problem is with susans statement
fishers inflated elo would be 2950. so this kid has a long ways to go before he’s compared to fischer. breaking 2800 elo now is like breaking 2600 elo thirty years ago. lets keep that in mind. think how strong fischer would have been if he had all the computer opening theory at his disposal. fischer would have hit 3100 elo if he had todays technology. lets be realistic about comparing carelson to the great bobby fischer. the kid is strong but im thinking hes going to have a hard time climbing much higher in elo points.
In response to wolverine2121, you’d have to say that Fischer kinda counted himself out of any arguments because he stopped playing when at his peak. We’ll never know if he would have gone onto 2950+ by todays standards, or if he’d have been beaten by Karpov, his inflated ego couldn’t cope, and he stopped playing althogether. Oh, wait… 😉
I love Fischer but the question is how Magnus compares to Fischer, Kasparov and Karpov at 17 years old and in my opinion he is definately doing as well as they did at the same age. Fischer, Kasparov were probably stronger than he at same age while Karpov only a little below. Magnus is still improving so until he reaches the wall we may very well be looking at the strongest player ever!
Some of these comments are so stupid it’s hard to believe. If there was Elo inflation the highest rated player would not be only 2800. Why has the top rating gone down 50 points if there is Elo inflation?
And Magnus is better than Fischer or Kasparov was at that age. He is the greatest prodigy of our era, an era in which it has become a lot easier to improve than earlier and where chess knowledge is avaliable to everyone. Chess is therefore getting younger and younger. Maybe Fischer or Kasparov could play at the same level as Magnus at his age if they grew up today, but they didn’t when they actually grew up, and I guess it wasn’t really possible either.
Why is everyone compared to Fischer?
Fischer wasn’t all that great until 1970. His fame is very unproportional with his achievements.
Zuerich 59 – 3rd
Candidates 59 – 6th out of 8
Mar del Plata 60 – 1st with Spassky
Buenos Aires 60 – around place 10
Reykjavik 60 – 1st (vs opponents nobody heard)
Bled 61 – finished 2nd
Stockholm interzonal 62 – 1st
Curacao candidates 62 – 4th out of 8
Capablanca memorial 65 – tied for 2nd place (he played via telegraph since no american citizen was allowed to go to Cuba)
Piatigorsky cup 66 – 2nd Spassky
Skopje 67 – 1st (Geller is the only opponent you would recognize)
Monte Carlo 67 – 1st
Sousse interzonal 67 – forfeited while in the lead
Netanya 68 – 1st against opponents nobody knows
Vinkovci 68 – 1st (Hort and Byrne are the only ones you probably recognize)
So where is his dominance? He won only 3 strong tournaments: Mar del Plata 60, Stockholm interzonal 62 and Monte Carlo 67. All other tournaments, including all US championships, were tournaments where he didn’t have any real opposition. He was an excellent chess player, but nothing breath taking.
Then in the 70’s he was really a great one:
Herceg Novi (blitz) 70 – 1st
Rovinj/Zagreb 70 – 1st
Buenos Aires 70 – 1st
Palma de Mallorca interzonal 70 – 1st
Candidates 71 – his 20 games winning streak and legendary 6-0 thrashing of Taimanov and Larsen, also defeating Petrosian in the final
World championship 72 – defeating Spassky 12.5 to 8.5
And then he quit. These results prove that he was the dominating figure in chess only between 1970-1972, everything else was not that great.